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Sunday, August 7, 2011

City of Heroes Celebrates Six Years

6th Anniversary Celebration

This has been a very eventful week for Paragon Studios, as their baby turned six. It's been pretty surreal for me, too, as I have been with the game since the first year. I had never played an MMO before, but Phantom played Everquest, so I was at least familiar with the concept. I had also followed news of CoH for a while, but 2004 was a busy and eventful year for me. I didn't get my account until the game was four months old, but I have been around ever since. It's hard to believe how much can change in six years, for both of us.

The in-game events were a lot of fun, if a bit a laggy. They summoned all manner of foe against us, as indicated by the screen shot at right where I'm taking on at least three Black Scorpions and a Babbage.

6th Anniversary Celebration

The festivities culminated in a dance party in Pocket D, and the distribution of "gold titles" (golden text that floats above a character's name that indicates they were part of the celebration) that will last until the end of May.

To see more of the screen shots I took during the events, click on any of these pictures and follow the 6th Anniversary tag.

Now, as to my own personal feelings about the future of the game, I remain mostly optimistic. I am currently working on a post about Issue 17 itself in which I talk about that optimism and in general praise the direction in which they are taking story telling (my favorite element of the game), mission and game mechanics, and mission objectives. For years players have been asking for a way to earn XP and complete missions with non-combat objectives, and in Issue 17, there is the start of that very thing.

I am a bit concerned, however, that each new issue brings with it new bugs. For example, the markets were closed all weekend due to problems that were either not picked up in testing or showed up after launch. In addition, a lot of characters have had their power customization reverted back to the standard colors, the global system is wonky (which really messes with the new e-mail system, which I'll detail more in the next post), and some folks are experiencing lag so badly they can't even play. I think so long as the developers and crew take the task of addressing and fixing these things promptly, there won't be much of an issue, as I17 has many more pluses than minuses. It just seems that the minuses get more notice.

All in all, I am thrilled with the direction the game is going, and with the way the devs keep this six year old game fresh and exciting. So here's to another six years of City of Heroes and beyond. Cheers!